The Republic of Heaven

Explicit sex, pro-ana and suicide themes

Les mains se tendent de tous côtés
Les chaînes sont lourdes, puis-je les ôter?
Un seul pas contre la tyrannie;
Une raison d'être dans toute ma vie.


There was this boy; firm-muscled, lithe and beautiful. Deirdre sat under a white parasol on the harbour side of the café, sipped at her weak Campari and orange, and watched him.

He was working on the deck of a sardine-boat, hosing down the scuppers, pulling on ropes and coiling them up, stopping from time to time to take a drag on a cigarette. 'Tut-tut,' said Deirdre to herself and took another sip of her long cool drink. She might have to do something about his smoking, if she decided to take him under her wing. She returned to her examination of the boy. He was stripped to the waist, wearing a pair of cut-down jeans and dirty sneakers. Whenever he took a break from his work he stopped and turned himself towards the sun. It glinted on his skin.

His skin... Deirdre felt the blood begin to rush with increased energy through her body as she gazed at his fabulous skin. It was a rich brown, polished perfectly smooth with glossy highlights of perspiration on shoulders and back. She thought she could smell him from where she sat, although in this busy, noisy port where the lambent afternoon air was already richly scented with fish, drains and diesel smoke, that must have been impossible. All the same, she could already taste his sweat on her tongue and feel, if only in her imagination, the touch of his skin against hers and the pressure of his fingertips on her body.

He was whistling a tune she had heard booming up to her hotel bedroom from the club in the basement. Everyone was playing it this year. Its simple refrain was quite inescapable. As she watched the boy move and turn, as she began to feel his jet-black hair bunching up between her fingers, as he pressed himself against her, as she began to respond to his rhythm with an urgent beat of her own... She opened her eyes.

He was looking directly at her. He knew he had her. He could take her whenever he wanted, for she was already his. Presently he would skip across the row of boats, come up to the café table and ask her to go with him. There would be a place he knew... But why wait? She got up and walked over to him. 'Hi,' she said, smiling.

'Pah! American!' He spat his cigarette-end into the harbour and turned away contemptuously. She was easy meat - too easy for him. Too vanilla-white. There was nothing she could offer him, Deirdre reflected and, anyway, she had been concentrating too hard on her own needs and neglecting his. That was not what the witches did. Her Annie-mother would not approve of her lusting after a carefree, attractive boy who doubtless had plenty of notches carved on his bedpost already. There would be others who needed her more.

Deirdre finished her coffee and returned to her hotel room. It took no more than five minutes to pack her things and only another five to check out. Her boat waited by the harbour wall. She threw her bag into the cockpit and jumped in after it. The diesels fired up at the first press of the starter. Deirdre cast off fore and aft and steered the black-hulled cruiser through the harbour and out onto the open sea, where she gunned the throttle hard.



There was this girl, lost and pale, huddled over a screen in a library cubicle. If she wasn't reading Baudelaire or Rimbaud, Deirdre thought, she should have been. But no.

Deirdre had never bothered much with the Internet, although the study at home contained an up-to-date computer which she used to fill in her tax returns. It was not that she was a Luddite, more that the Web offered her nothing she wanted. The Light Programme and the Home Service, Tit-Bits and the Manchester Guardian gave her all the news she wanted. The twins Ashley and Mitchell had a big plasma screen in their room, but she only watched it with them, never by herself. If she needed information there was a perfectly good public library in Camberley and if she wanted to talk to someone she would go round and see them or - and this happened remarkably often - they would come round and see her.

But she knew about the Internet all the same. Many of her visitors would sit with her in the kitchen and ask if they could check their email or they'd take out their iPhones or their Blackberries and scan them for new messages. Deirdre observed that they consulted their gadgets almost subconsciously, as if making sure they were still connected with the electronic world had become as necessary as breathing.

'I'm terribly sorry,' she would say, 'but the signal's absolutely dreadful around here. We must be in a dip, you know? But look, it'll wait, won't it?'

Her visitor would look forlorn and Deirdre would have to find something to distract him. It was nearly always a man, she'd noticed. Some of them became quite twitchy - they were the ones who needed her help the most. But this was not a man, it was a girl and she was not looking at Google or Amazon or Facebook or Twitter but something much darker. Not porn; Deidre was often visited by users of pornography. They were usually men too. But it was clear from a short glimpse that she needed help.

But how? Deidre's home was thousands of miles from this East Coast university town, so it wasn't very likely that this girl - darkly pretty, wearing a long-sleeved white blouse over a blue mid-length skirt - would pop in and see her any time soon. And Deirdre did not know if there were any of her sisters living nearby. The witches had been terribly persecuted here in the past; hunted down, branded, flogged and burned. The memory of their torments lived on, scorched into the fabric of the land. The witches forgave - that was their nature - but they found it hard to forget Salem.

Deirdre watched the girl. It was not part of the witches' credo to offer help directly. The needy ones had to find their way to them as a rule although, like most rules, this one was open to negotiation.



There was this man, late forties, grizzled hair, Stetson hat, sitting by himself in a Midwest diner marooned in a sea of cornfields and missile silos. She should have known better, but Deidre could see his unhappiness and loss the moment she walked into the brightly-lit room, so she took a seat in the booth next to his. It had been a long day's drive; she needed a break and somebody to talk to.

'Coffee, please,' she said to the waitress.

'Pastry with that, miss? We have great Danish, pancakes also.'

They would be mass-produced, stodgy and bland, made in a factory back East and shipped in frozen. But anything would do.

'Pancakes would be lovely,' Deirdre said. She was wearing blue jeans, a denim jacket and a John Deere baseball cap over her long dark hair. Her truck was parked outside.

'Maple syrup, strawberry sauce, raspberry sauce, chocolate sauce, pecans, hazelnuts...?'

'Maple syrup, please.'

'Thank you, miss. Coming right up.'

'You have a ladies' room?'

'Left of the counter and through to the back, miss.' Deirdre found the restroom and made a few necessary changes to her appearance.

He was still there when she returned. His eyes followed her as she took her seat at the table where her coffee and pancakes were waiting. Soon, as Deirdre had planned, they were talking. They left the diner together.

'That your truck?'

'Sure is.' What was it about men and motor vehicles, anyway?

'It's a ‘54 F-100, right?'

'55 actually. Belonged to my grandpappy. I had it restored. You want a look?'

'Sure.'

It was, as Deirdre had said, a 1955 Ford F-100 truck, with a 239 cubic inch Y-block V8 engine developing a modest 130 horsepower. The man opened and closed the doors and admired its shiny black paintwork and all-original interior.

'Like a look under the hood?' Deirdre asked.

'Sure. Say, my place isn't far from here. We could...'

'Why not? You could have a real good look...'



Deirdre wanted to help the girl if she could. But how? Would it be a good idea to meet her online and talk to her there? Or should she find her in real life? Either way would be difficult. If the girl thought Deirdre was stalking her she would reject her help instantly. Online or in real life; it would make little difference. But Deirdre had seen the marks, despite the long sleeves of the blouse the girl wore. She knew about her unhappiness.



'Do you want to have me now?' Deidre was standing at exactly the right distance from the man. He could put his hands on any part of her body with no trouble. He could, if he wanted, stand up and kiss her. 'I wish you would,' she added. 'I'm getting awful wet - I've not had a real man for ages.' Deirdre turned and slowly, button by button, undid her checked shirt and dropped it on the floor of the barn. She was wearing a black, lace-trimmed bra underneath. The man breathed in audibly. He was interested, then.

Deirdre wished she had chosen to wear a skirt rather than jeans. She was sure the man would have enjoyed slipping his hand inside a gingham skirt, belled out with frothy layers of petticoats, and discovering smooth, soft thighs and a warm sex within. Instead, she took his left hand and placed it on her denim-clad leg. She reached behind her back and unclipped the bra, lowering her arms so that it slipped from her shoulders and released her breasts from their confinement. They were larger than she usually wore them and their nipples were tall and erect. The man took in another deep breath.

'What would you like to do with me?' Deirdre said. 'I'll do anything you like. Just a minute.' She kicked off her boots, undid the belt of her jeans and wriggled out of them. 'There. That's better.' She put his hand against her panties so he could feel how damp she'd made them. 'Why don't you pull them off me?'

All this time, while Deirdre performed her striptease, the man sat silent and motionless on a hay bale, his face expressionless. The only clue to his arousal was his shallow, rapid breathing. Deirdre knelt down in front of him, allowing her breasts to brush against his face while she undid the zipper of his trousers and carefully drew out his member. She leaned forward and took it into her mouth, rolling her tongue around it, sucking it and letting her teeth nip it. The man panted and gasped. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head over his crotch, forcing his sex deep into the back of her mouth.

He came almost immediately. It was as Deirdre had guessed in the diner - he had not been with a woman for a very long time. That pent-up hunger she thought she had seen in him had been real. He was just like so many of the sad, abandoned men she had received in her house.

'There,' she said, lifting her head and swallowing. 'That's better, isn't it? Now, why don't you take those unnecessary clothes off? And why don't you show this girl what you can really do? Take your time, hey?' Deidre pulled her panties down and tossed them on top of the rest of her things. She knelt down in front of the man once more and removed his shirt with a few deft movements. She dug her nails into his back. He flinched and put his hands to either side to steady himself. His member was becoming stiff once more, so she straddled him where he sat, impaling herself on him.

'Mmm. That feels nice.' She put her hands on his shoulders, lifted herself slightly and let go suddenly, so that he penetrated her more deeply.

'Ahhh...'



Deirdre returned to the library often. She made a point of being in the vicinity when the girl spoke, so that she learned her name, which was Ella, and where she lived, which was in an all-girl dorm on the east side of the campus. But it was hard to discover more. She didn't know how to reach her. And although she said hello and goodbye when they passed, Deirdre never saw Ella eat. And she never saw when she cut herself.

She began to lose weight.



The man stood up suddenly, pushing Deirdre away. She rose to her feet. Was she doing something wrong? The answer was not long in coming. 'Down,' he said, pointing to the earth floor of the barn. Deirdre took two steps back. Which way did he want her? Taking a wild guess, she got to her hands and knees and lifted her rear, presenting her sex to him.

'Hell, no! What do you think I am; an animal? Do it like a Christian, for God's sake!'

Deirdre turned over onto her back and opened her legs wide. The man tore off his pants and threw himself onto her, forcing himself deep inside and pushing hard. Ah... So he liked to be on top. Right.

It was Deirdre's duty to take care of her visitors, to maximise their enjoyment. So, while letting the man think that it was he who was in control, she subtly manipulated him, gasping and crying when he seemed to be becoming less firm, and slackening off when he started to approach his climax. She had skills and muscle control that most mortals had never heard of. The ground was hard and scratched her back, but she could deal with that quickly and easily enough.

Eventually, with him thrusting above her and she bucking beneath him, he reached the point of little-death, as the witches called it among themselves. She cried out to make it appear that her orgasm had coincided with his. Except, of course, that she had no orgasm.

Good, she thought. That was well done. True, the man was still a widower and his children still lived with his sister Jean in another state. But she had brought something to him, had she not, even though it was fleeting. She was sure he would not forget their encounter in a hurry. And... there must be some of her sisters living nearby, even in such a God-fearing part of the country as this. When she got home she would do a little research.



A week passed, and then ten days. Deirdre and Ella discovered they took some of the same classes and covered many of the same assignments. Deirdre confessed that she was having difficulty with her essays, and Ella volunteered to help her. And Deirdre always made sure that there was never any doubt which was the prettier girl, although it went against her instincts. She enjoyed being beautiful.

But, even with all the hanging out together that they did, she could get no closer to Ella. And despite her best endeavours, Deirdre still attracted attention where Ella did not. At parties, in the cafeteria (where Ella chose little and ate less) despite being pretty Ella's plain friend, it was Deirdre who had to shake off the boys at the end of the evening or when it was time to return to classes. And Ella went back to the dorm or the library and hung out on the pro-ana and pro-suicide forums and found people in chatrooms whose feelings meshed with her own. Deirdre could only stand by and watch. She did not dare press the girl or ask questions that could not be answered for fear of tipping her over the edge.

All the same, they had this conversation one day while taking a coffee break between lectures:

'You know what a con this all is.' Ella, waving a hand at the cafeteria counter.

'What do you mean?'

'All this food, all this stuff.'

'It's just food.'

'It's not. Oh, it is, but it's more than that. It's a trick.'

Deirdre took a sip of coffee. 'Go on, tell me.'

Ella leaned forward. 'Go back in time. Two hundred years or so. What did people eat?'

Deidre knew the answer to this question from direct experience. 'Whatever they could.'

'That's right. No refrigerators. No bulk transport. No out-of-season food. No raspberries in December.'

Deirdre nodded.

'And we evolved to deal with it. When there was plenty to eat we ate it, before it could go rotten. We stored what we could for the winter. It was a survival thing. When winter came, we were fat. Come spring we were thin. But now...'

'Yes?'

'Now there are no seasons. You can get anything you want, any time. But our bodies, our hindbrains, they don't know that. They say eat now, while you can. Eat as much as you can stuff down yourself. Supersize it. And those bastards know it, don't they? They sell us cheap fatty processed trash that blocks us up and kills us and they know all the artificial flavours to add and all the sales tricks to use to keep us coming back for more.'

'But you don't have to eat it...'

'No! You don't! We know that! But look... it's operating below the conscious level. And it's all a lot of us can afford.'

'That's true.' Deirdre had been shocked to see so many poor and malnourished people in such a rich country.

'And they don't want the people to know how much they're being taken in.'

'It's a conspiracy, you mean.' Deirdre smiled.

Ella's eyes flared. 'Don't ~*iguana*~ with me. It's not funny. This isn't Mulder and Scully. This isn't Fox News. This is big business destroying people's lives for profit. This is real.'



'Have you had enough of screwing me yet, you bitch? You whore?'

The man stood above her, pulling his pants back on.

'Sorry?' Oh no.

'You heard me.'

'Don't you like me?' Deirdre put a little-girl note in her voice.

'I like you fine, harlot. Now get the hell off my property.'

'I thought we could go inside. I'll fix you something to eat. I'm a real good cook.' Deirdre got to her feet.

The man came up to her. His face was red with anger. 'I wouldn't allow you anywhere near my house. That's for decent folk. Not for whores like you. Now - get out! Before I set my dog on you!'

Deirdre picked up her things. 'You'll let me get dressed?'

'You can do what the hell you like. I don't care.' The man turned his back on her and stamped out of the barn. Deirdre left not long afterwards.



They found Ella in the Connecticut River two day later. The marks were fresh on her body, but she had a history and no third party was suspected, not even her new friend.

I couldn't let anyone see me - I'm so fat, it said in her last status update. Look - I'm absolutely bulging!

But oh! Why hadn't she stayed and fought?

Deirdre wore a red bracelet in Ella's memory and continued on her westward journey. The road was hard and strewn with broken lives.

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Deirdre's truck: